


Immortality, Take Two

by And_all_the_other_buns



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Angst, Armand trying his best, Domestic Fluff, Dominance and Submission, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Power Dynamics, Romance, Their usual mess of love and abuse, Unhealthy Relationships, Usual Marius failures, canon typical relationship dynamics, flashbacks to Venice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/And_all_the_other_buns/pseuds/And_all_the_other_buns
Summary: Post Blood CommunionIt was Armands idea to buy the little home in the village, for just himself and Marius. Time away from court, for even just a few hours a night, time away from everyone else to give them a last chance to heal.
Relationships: Armand/Daniel Molloy, Armand/Marius de Romanus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

))) Marius (((

The house was Armand's idea. A little place down in the village, away from the castle. A modest thing, at least by our usual lavish standards, it was a simple three bedroom affair, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen that would have little use. A terribly modern thing, I had declared, but definitely to Armand's tastes with high windows through the living room, marble counters and track lighting. The floors were mostly hard wood, a deep color, a smokey charcoal grey, save for the bathroom tiles and a plush pile carpet in the master bedroom. Despite the gleaming stainless steel and light decor, it was a warm, cozy thing, softened with warm paint colors and soft, comfortable furniture. 

Well, what there was so far.

It was Armand's idea. Or rather, it was his demand, one that I had no right nor will to deny him. My fledgling wanted our own place, away from the drama of Lestat's parties and princely fits, away from the problems of the coven and the visitors and all the stress that entailed. My Armand wanted time alone, just for us, and for his Daniel when he wanted to visit, to try and be a family once more. A couple.

We haven't not been together, not truly, in 521 years, not since fire wrenched us apart and flung us hundreds of miles away. Not since Venice, and Paris, and all the centuries and space between them. Our respit on the Night Island had been fleeting and stressful and seemed to have only reopened a wound long scabbed over, one that had become infected since I had let my own life story be put to paper. 

Icouldn't say I didn't know what I was doing, because I did, and I couldn't say I didn't expect the icy, bitter reaction from Armand because I did. But it had been time to let those words escape the prison I'd built around them. And there they were, in black and white. My admission that I left Armand in Paris, that I left him to free himself, and that his making was my greatest failure.

Maybe I just wanted to drop the blade of the guillotine mtself, tired of living in limbo. So many years of stringing one another along and staring at one another awkward and shy. We couldn't go back to what we had before, and what we had now was not working on any level, so perhaps shattering everything and starting over was their last chance. And I was not going to fuck up this chance. Which was how I found himself on the floor of the living room at midnight, tearing open boxes.

This, too, was Armand's idea. He wanted a simple house, just the two of us, and he wanted the experience of moving in and making it home. No mortal servants, maybe a cleaning lady once a week if needed, but truly two vampires made little mess. But he wanted this, he wanted to play music while we unpacked our books and keepsakes, bundles of stationary and blankets for the sofa. Armand wanted a /home/ for himself and his...maker? Friend? Lover? Father?

"Master?"

"What is it, Armand?" I promoted gently, still unuse to this name on my lips. I looked up from my box of hardbacks to where Armand stood, holding a smaller box stained with paint prints and even there, in faded jeans and a pullover, his long hair pulled into a high ponytail, he looked lovely.

"Have you decided which room you wanted for your studio?"

I nodded, rising easily to my feet to show Armand to the second bedroom to the left, nearly empty still, but with an easel propped in a corner, waiting to be unfolded.

"I wanted to leave the larger one for Daniel," I explained lightly. "I know he says he likes the castle, and I know he does, but I have a feeling he will tire of the drama from time to time, so a nice bedroom will suit him well."

Armand hummed quietly, setting the box down in another corner.

"None of the rooms are especially small but...this will be enough space, Master?"

I nodded, slipping my hands into the pocket of my trousers.

"It will. I'm not painting canvases for the churches anymore, after all, nothing nearly so large and brilliant. Just small things, that bring me happiness."

"Is that why you have thirty paintings of my Daniel?" He asked, dry and brittle, but without a real malice. That was something to hold on to, at least.

I smiled gently and pulled my hair back over my shoulders.

"In a way, yes. I love Daniel. Every moment I cared for him, I loved him more. And I can't deny he made a good sitter for me, as still as he often was." Sensing the way Armand went rigid at my side, I amended, "I always asked first, if I could paint him. He was rarely so out of his mind as to not hear me."

Another nod. Armand looked about the room, as though taken by the same slate walls and same cool lighting he'd seen a dozen times already. Loose, short coils of auburn hair spilled around his cheeks, and he brushed them back impatiently. Each finger glittered with his favorite rings.

"It'll be nice to see you paint again," he said. "It's been a while."

"I'm not sure the ceiling of the ballroom has even dried yet," I chuckled, the sound awkward and heavy against Armand's ever unchanging mask.

"No. Not like that," he said, quiet. "Painting alone, I mean. Just us."

And Icould think of only one picture, a boy asleep in the fields, a shepherd watching over the prone image from heaven, and how glad I was that my mind was closed to my child. Amadeo hated that painting, he'd thrown it to the floor upon seeing it, and right now my goal in life was to keep things calm between us. Later could come happiness, I hoped, later may come joy again, but for now I wanted only time together that didn't end in screaming or tantrums or striking Armand across the face.

Yes, peace was attainable. Maybe. If we both tried.

)))Armand(((

It was my idea, and I was already afraid I would regret it. I didn't want to regret it, and wasn't setting myself up for sabotage by any means, but it seemed with each box I opened I unpacked worry along with hair products.

It was my idea, and I had to make it work. We had to. I really didn't know if there would be any more second chances, or if I could weather another loss.

It had been only a month since Marius was taken from me a second time, and the fist around my heart was only starting to loosen. Even tonight, the very memory of his taking, the realization he was gone, the assurance that my Master was dead was enough to turn my belly cold. It was like he needed to breathe for the first time in five centuries only to find out suddenly I didn't know how. If a vampire could drown, that is what it would feel like, that trauma.

But Master was here now, beside me, sorting through his paints and palettes and brushes. Soon, I knew, the room would take on that heavy, cloying smell of oil paints and turpentine, so like Venice-

No, I told myselfelf quietly as I shook my head to rid myself of the thought. Like our rooms at the castle, or the balcony on the Island. But not like Venice; Venice had burned.

I left Marius to his new studio, and instead picked up a plastic tub from the living room and sat it on my hip, carrying it to the bathroom to sort. I had rather a love for pleasantly scented lotions and creams and other little baubles, and if the box on the floor was an indication Marius didn't eschew good grooming either. Of course we had no need for many mortal products, but blood sweat clung to the body just as much as anything else, and I still accumulated dirt under my nails and grime in my hair. Wind and sleep and rain still tangled my curls, and they still grew terribly bushy and frizzy if I didn't keep them nicely. So I lined our tub with shampoo formed into neat little herbal bars and bottles of hair oil, body wash and creamy soaps. 

It was quite a nice tub, a large corner garden tub, deep and wide enough that I could nearly lie down in it- maybe not the biggest brag considering I was only 5'6 with my shoes on and mt hair counting towards my height, but still. It was one of the selling points for the house, this master suite with such a nice tub, the perfect size for two.

'539 years old and you still blush like a virgin bride!' I scolded himself as I felt my face flush. I blamed it on my reccent feed, as though it did any good to lie to myself, as though I wasn't fully aware of how I burned with passion and lust and love for my Master. To David I had said, I was afraid to fall back into Marius' thrall, too afraid I would love him again, but that too had been a lie, really. My heart still rested in Master's hands, and it had since I was bought from the brothel those five centuries ago. Through the fire and the boneyards and the church pews, the theatre and the Night Island and the Chataeu de Lioncourt, I had never truly stopped loving Marius.

I wished I could have. Blood and Gold would have gone down a lot easier if I'd been able to numb himself out to my Master's chilling words. Bah, what a pompous and inflated title, had Marius picked it himself? Blood and gold, what a disgrace to such beautiful things, tainting their glitter with those awful tales! Even now the feeling burned my eyes, and I blinked quickly, dragging down the sleeve of my black knit shirt to soak up my red tears. Not the time, I told himself. Don't feel that now, don't think about it now, because thinking brings anger and rage and axes to doors.

That was for later. That was for talk. Tonight was for action, and I quickly set myself back to work, pretending I had any real domestic skills at all to set us up a home. Well….alright, maybe I'll did. By my months as a newborn fledgling in the Palazzo I was well versed in helping keep the bills and books for the house, tending to small spills of paints or food, or keeping our bedroom warm and smelling like sweet oils and herbs for when Master would be back for me.

So I dug through another box, this one labeled with my own tidy, looping handwriting and dug through it to find my growing collection of candles and incense. It took only a thought to light the wicks of a pair of spiced sandlewood candles, placing them on ceramic plates on a low living room table. The made a nice glow, an almost romantic glow, and I stared at the flickering for a long moment. How splendid fire had looked those first nights in the blood, Master watching as the flames bewitched me, as I stared so intently at their dancing light.

"Beautiful isn't it, my fledgling?" Master asked in a voice meant to not jar him from his spell. "The world is an endless font of beauty for you now, my son, it's waiting only for your wonder and delight."

How long since I had truly delighted in anything? 

A sigh left my lips, as I turned away from the candles. Plenty delighted me; my Daniel, my beloved firstborn, and soft, gentle Louis. The dogs Lestat kept at the castle, drool and all, the books I lost myself in for years on end.

But how long had it been since I could say I could look at Master and truly feel that adoration and love I once felt?

From the bedroom came the sound of Marius' voice, humming and half singing along to the song on the song coming through the speakers, something almost folksy from the 70s. It twisted my heart, reminding me again of Venice, singing with Riccardo and the other boys for our Master's entertainment, his face alight with his love for us.

How badly I wanted to see that face again.


	2. Chapter 2

)))Armand(((

Truth be told I had little to do most nights at court. Unlike Master or Benji or Gregory, I held no real title nor did I have any skills readily needed for everynight tasks. My spells and enchantments were above those of even many children of the millennia, and I was quite a hand at smoothing over issues with mortals, but it wasn't often that I had any official reason to hypnotize a fellow blood drinker. 

Still, there was a seat for me at the council, to Master's right, though I can't say I deserved to be so near the Prime Ministers spot. That's where they put me though, and I couldn't well turn down this spot of inclusion. I might be thoroughly bored through most meetings but if I were not invited I would be even more thoroughly vexed. 

Besides, considering the only one who caused more drama in court than me was the brat prince himself, I considered my standing invitation a blessing. Not like it was my fault nobody liked my ideas.

At my side, Master read off his most recent plans for dealing with abandoned fledglings, as a pair had been found in London not long ago, and neither knew the name of their maker. Of course it was without saying that the newborns would be brought into our fold, fostered by older blood drinkers who could fill in for what their master's lacked, and teach them to be well adjusted, happy, and safe children of moonlight.

Lestat listened quietly through most of this, as Master rallied rather passionately against those who would give away their blood and not their words or teachings, and I couldn't help but notice how stiffly sat the spirit across from me. Magnus, Lestat's maker, ghost made too solid to truly be called such. I could not enter his mind as I could a living being but I didn't need to to sense the regret dripping off of him, the guilt. Well. His fault. He should have stayed around at least a night or 12. Who knows how much better the entire coven would be fairing if Lestat had a decent maker? One who tutored him and mentored him as a vampire ought to?

"...My apologies if my words sit uncomfortably with any among us," Marius said as he finished his notes, his brilliant blue eyes tearing on Magnus for only a moment, long enough to let the spirit know he was speaking to him but not long enough to single him out. "But it must be said, and it's something I believe in with passion. Our young should be turned with reverence and guided as any child out to be when brought into their family. To leave a fledgling before they've even finished their death pangs is not how we will do things in our coven, and there should be consequences for deserters."

Magnus lowered his head with humility, and nodded. 

I wondered how many around me, readers of a certain memoir, wondered if Master was projecting just the tiniest bit right now. I couldn't disagree. How hypocritical of Marius to rant and rave about inconpenetant sires when he left his only son to rot in a grave.

Yet...

...how lucky I had been. Those two fledglings, Lestat, Marius himself- so many of our kind were thrown into the dark as orphans, whereas my own turning was a spot of my life where I could claim no trauma, save for the raging pains and fever of the poison in my blood. How vile I must have tasted on Master's lips as he took me, as he fed deep, pulling from my heart, yet he spilled not a drop. I recall, despite my delirium, every moment held in his arms, remembered him coaxing me to bite and take back what had been given to him. The rush of vampiric blood filling me in a way the kisses never had, the surge of power from each dram, the clarity of the world around me once my body finally died.

And there, through every moment, was Master. There was Master to ease me into my coffin at dawn, to wait for me to wake again the following night. And at Master's side I stayed, as he taught me to walk the shadows, taught me to hunt, taught me to satiate the absolute brutal hunger in my belly. I remember his pride after my first kill on my own, as I returned to him, a vision in blue velvet, cheeks surely pink, blood spilling down my lips as I sought his praise and it was readily given to me.

"But next time, we don't waste food, young one," he had scolded gently, wiping his cold thumb against my skin to catch the spilled blood. Without provocation I had leaned forward, trapping his thumb between my lips to savor the last cooling drops of my meal-

"Armand? We're excused."

...how humiliating to be caught daydreaming in court. Feeling a heat to my face, I rose, trying to not slam my chair into the table.

As usual after an assembly, the castle turned to a most social thing, those visiting from abroad eager to kiss the prince's ring, to shake my Master's hand. Rarely did anyone approach me outright but that was fine with me; I savored the hesitancey in their eyes, matching my stature and hair and plump cheeks to those descriptions of me on the page, and knowing me quite quickly. Armand, the devil's boy, the child of the renaissance, the coven master, the hunting dog, the poor thing taken and turned and left far too young, the…

Well. As I said, I had no title in court, and more than once I had seen someone struggle for what to call me. I think my favorite so far were those who tried to address me as Consort, as they did Louis, if for no other reason to savor their terror upon realizing that was absolutely the wrong thing to say to me.

Sure, it warmed something delightfully shameful in me but they needn't know /that/. Nobody needed to know that, except perhaps Louis, who never failed to catch my eye across the room when those feelings surged through me. Oh, my Louis knew me well, in a way closed off to Master and Daniel. 

And speaking of my gangly little fledgling, there he was, waiting in one of the grand parlors, sitting next to Victor and soundly kicking his ass at a video game I didn't yet recognize. It was almost cute, how Victor still hadn't accepted that Daniel wasn't the typical baby boomer and could, in fact, hold his own with technology. Those lucky bastards held no more a position in council than I did, save Victor's honorary title of nobility for being the son of the prince. 

Daniel looked up when I entered, flashed me a crooked smile and didn't miss a beat at his game, reaching the end of the platformers level far ahead of a rather grumpy Victor. He didn't look any more pleased at defeat than his father did. Little bitch.

Daniel sat down his controller, ambling over with long steps and scooped me up before I could scold him against such a thing.

"Spin me like a fairytale princess?" I hissed, pretending to be more appalled than I was. My Daniel only leaned down to ask for a kiss, which I granted him graciously, reaching up to run my hand through his short ash-brown hair.

Things were peaceful between Daniel and I. Not as exciting as our times with him as a mortal, but better than they had been during his descent into madness those years ago. My Daniel, my firstborn, how my stomach still seized thinking about his first years. I tried. I think he understands now, I gave him what I could, but I didn't have enough of myself to share.

Magnus wasn't the only one who had failed his fledgling, and I was ashamed of what ran in our bloodline.

"Missed you, boss," Daniel said, letting his hands rest on my waist, despite having to hunch his shoulders to do so. Daniel was /obscenely/ tall, entirely too tall, a good two inches more than Master. We made an entertaining family portrait to say the least.

"I was gone only a night and a day," I excused, practically scoffing, bit Daniel paid me no mind.

"Did you get moved in ok?"

"Well enough. We still haven't gotten all of Master's books put away nor the studio set up, but it's a process...you know, you should come over soon to set up your room."

He shrugged, not seeming terribly invested, and I felt sick at the nonchalance. But he spoke quickly as his thumb rubbed circles over my side.

"I want you and Marius to have time to get settled," he said cautiously, looking around for said Roman. "I mean, I don't really feel like getting in between one of your...uh...lover's quarrels."

...that was fair. Indeed, Daniel had to break up more than one "lover's quarrel" between myself and Master, usually using his height as leverage to hoist me off the ground before I could use my superior strength to fight back. My poor child; he had no idea what kind of brutality we got up to behind closed doors.

Well. Perhaps he was right to want space for a few weeks. A month. Or three.

)))Marius(((

It was a twenty minute walk from the castle to the edge of the village where we were making home, and we set out with plenty of moonlight left. The society of court was always a welcome change from our usual centuries of isolation- my own glacial tenure came to mind- but that wasn't our priority right now. It certainly wasn't mine.

In another time I would have called it romantic, the way the quarter moon filtered through the trees lining our path, the stars breaking through the sparse clouds. Summer nights were chilled here, and I couldn't help but recall the cool breezes in Venice, how my Amadeo thought nothing of our winters, brought up in the icy wilds of Russia, yet he never turned away a warm, nestling spot beneath my cloak nor turned away my hand folding around his.

I'm pretty sure if I reached for his hand now the little terror would actually bite me. I raised a gentleman, but the Children of Night raised a feral thing, a howling thing, a boy that stole clothing off corpses and washed his hair maybe once a decade. He came back to me with the habit of hissing his displeasure like a cat and clawing at anything that upset him-

I didn't like the way those thoughts made me feel, so I chose not to think about them. I always chose not to think about them, and I knew full well that's what got me into this place to begin with.

But I wasn't ready to address that. My pride wouldn't let me. And I plain didn't want to.

I probably should want to…

Beside me, Armand- not my Amadeo, not for centuries- walked with his hands in his jacket pockets, quick strides to keep up with how my longer legs ate the road before us. 

"Weather's nice," I offered mildly, glancing heavenward. "You can tell the sun was strong today. Everything feels warmer, even this late into the night."

Armand hummed gently, giving a slight nod. 

"I would like a nice storm. It's been too long since we had thunder shake the castle's windows."

"That could be nice. I like lightning strikes."

Gods...was this really what we had been reduced to? When once we spent hour upon hour talking of literature and poetry and art, of the embarasing drunken display we had seen of a nobleman down by the canals or the gossip from Bianca? Was there really nothing this side of Venice to speak of besides the weather?

'Oh there's plenty,' something bitter said to me, something that had the audacity to speak in my own voice. 'But you're a coward.'

Hogwash. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply in and then out, ridding the anxiety from my body with the breathing. 

This wasn't the time. Not yet. I couldn't deal with that yet. I wasn't...we weren't ready.

Armand, seeming very intent to keep this experience as 'typical' of one as possible, kept the keys to our house on a ring and prefered to enter that way, though either of us could unlock the door with less than a solid thought. I had to admit though, I liked the sound of the latch clunking open, the achuffle of the door against the stone of the entry way. Already I was growing fond of the smell of home. Every house has it's smell, a mix of its occupants' soaps and detergents and perfumes, the sprays used to clean furniture, the food they cooked. Of course, the last didn't apply here, and the home still carried the vaguely chemical scents of new carpet and paint, but it was fading and growing comforting in equal measure.

Keys into the glass dish by the door, shoes off, jacket off, and Armand trod forward in stocking feet. How precious he looked to me-how he always looked to me- in pale jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, so seemingly plain, yet rubies glittered on his fingers, a diamond on the necklace around his throat. He turned to me, his messy auburn curls dragging over narrow shoulders.

"We could watch a movie before dawn takes me?" He suggested lightly; the morning always called Armand to sleep nearly an hour before it did me.

"...not Time Bandits," I replied, making a face. "I've seen that one entirely too many times between you and Daniel."

Armand paused, bent to grab the remove off the coffee table.

",...you watched that with Daniel?"

I hesitated, shrugging off my own jacket, but quickly decided this was a good thing, a nice thing to share.

I hoped. It seemed I wasn't as up on my Amadeo's moods as I always thought I was.

"Yes...it was a favorite of Daniel. He watched it over and over, kept rewinding the same singing bit...told me later it was your favorite."

Armand let his face fall still, this perfect mask he had so long ago perfected, that I was absolutely not privy to see beneath.

"...we could watch it if you wanted," I amended quickly, stepping forward to hesitantly close the space between us, but careful not to draw too close. Often my child was a flighty thing and I feared scaring him off. "I wouldn't mind another go-"

"No," Armand said quickly, shaking out his curls once again. "No...maybe Daniel could come over some night. Me and him could watch it then. Or the three of us," he added, his eyes wide as he glanced sidelong at me, his pretty face still unreadable glass. His voice, though, held just a tone of...perhaps fear? What did he have to fear from me when he had done nothing wrong?

Well.

"Perhaps we can. I would like Daniel to visit soon. But it's just us tonight…?"

"How about Les Miserable? The anniversary concert?" He suggested quickly, busying himself flipping through his digital library.

I followed his lead. What else could I do?

"Sure, child, but it's long...you'll be asleep by the barricade."

"...I trust you'll put me to my bed safely, won't you?" He asked and oh, I could almost pretend he was coy with me, but that single word stuck out. My. Because currently we were not sharing a bed. I had the master bedroom's king size bed, and Armand slept curled tied in the full bed set up in Daniel's part time room. We had agreed to this, going in. We had agreed that Armand wasn't ready to sleep at my side yet every night. 

And that hurt, I can't pretend it didn't, but this was a plan going at my child's pace. And I was ok with that.

I had to be ok with that.


	3. Chapter 3

)))Marius(((

Armand wasn't as strong as his reputation made it seem. Of course, he was a gifted immortal- nobody born from my old blood would be anything but. His spells and bewitchments were among the most startling I had encountered, even at only 500 years in the blood. He was able to put on a fair hallucinatory show for Thorne once, bringing to the castle ceiling the sort of Thor-given storm he remembered from his human days. And he was a skilled predator, ensnaring his meals with the same gentle magic, but also with speed and flight and flame. 

So yes, my Amadeo could hold his own, but it was his attitude and reputation that helped gloss over his cracks and frailities.

I always woke first; this was a given, but the 45 minutes it took for Armand to follow me were always a difficult stretch of the night. Lying in death, cold and gray and unbreathing, heartbeat stilled to a barely perceptible shudder, my fledgling was lost to the world as I dressed, combed my hair, and opened the news on my tablet. I kept the curtains closed, even though I'd unbolted the seamless shutters fixed to each one, sealed against even the stingiest rays of sunlight. Outside the horizon was alight still, the sun just below the line, casting crimson and brightest pink and tangerine. It was a beauty to me, this taste of daylight, but it would be agony for my boy. It wouldn't kill him, undoubtedly, but it would be painful to look at, the echoes of sunlight too much for his eyes. It could happen sometimes, as immortals grew stronger, that they  
could force themselves to resist the death sleep a little longer at dawn, forcing their bodies to a new limit, but it was neither an easy nor painless process. I was glad, on one hand, that he slept safely. On the other, it concerned me.

When we was reborn to me, Amadeo took the sleep fretfully early and stayed that way till the sky was black; such was normal for a newborn, especially one changed on their deathbed. But to be 522 years in the blood and still take so long...even Benji, so young, fell asleep only ten minutes or so before Armand.

Sighing, I flipped past another headline, scanning it with a light but passing interest, my eyes flickering up often to the door of his room.

I knew why. The only vampire Armand shared blood with regularly was Daniel, a fine boy in his own right, but frightfully young still. I was sure he and Louis had their time at Trinity gate, but from what passing images I had gleaned from Louis, Armand bit rarely, prefering to bare his neck for his lover instead.

The door remained closed, but I should expect as much. I knew exactly what time I would see him awake.

He lacked in other ways too, not merely from his need for sleep. I would expect, by this age, for my Amadeo's temper to have calmed. I expected him to gain a judicial wisdom with his years, but his readiness to bring a hailstorm of retribution to any who caused us a disruption was still present and frustrating. His penchant for screaming, his disrespect for elders in the council-

Glancing from the clock to the door, I closed the news app, opened the browser, and hovered my finger over my bookmarked pages, but couldn't bring myself to click. We had plans for the evening, and starting the night like this didn't seem conducive to a nice time. I didn't want to fill my head with these new words, with acronyms I was still learning and columns full of information I wasn't sure yet how to process. So I clicked a different app instead, browsing a catalogue of recorded books to see if anything might be nice to play later as I painted 

Just as I knew, Armand's bedroom door opened once the sky was purple and maroon, just a kiss left of daylight. He grumbled something to me, scrubbing his eyes as he passed to the bathroom to splash water on his face. Ah, that was another thing. There was really no reason for Armand to be so groggy when he woke. Of course we could feel tired, a midnight nap was often the solution for exhaustion, but waking up sleepy wasn't our norm, not from the death sleep. I watched him go back to his room to dress, an unpleasant heat in my chest.

'Feed him,' an almost instinctive desire said to me, so clear and loud that for a moment it was like that brat Amel was taking up residence in my skull once more. 'He needs it, feed him.'

I wanted to. Of course I wanted to, it was what a proper maker did. Bloodsharing with their fledgling strengthened them with the maker's older, more powerful blood, it sharpened their minds and instincts. And in Amadeo's ten months with me after his turning, it was almost a nightly affair, the blood pouring between us as easily as our lovemaking when Amadeo had been a living boy. My beautiful fledgling took to the blood in a way I had never seen, he grew so strong so quick, a lithe thing who would surely have the gift of flight within a century, maybe less-

But that's not how life went. Fire and cruelty and Santino took Amadeo from me and returned to me a howling thing, a mad thing, my beloved, yes, but caked still with the memories of graveyard dirt and things slithering in his hair. I'd seen him in Lestat's mind before, and it was seated now into my own, Armand filthy beyond my imagining, clothes that clung to him with mud and moss and blood sweat, hair so sooty one could barely see it's auburn color. Viscous and feral and cruel, I wondered sometimes still, if Amadeo still prowled the space where Les Innocents had once been, if he felt a part of him missing, forced from filth back to civility 

Hiis door unlatched, and he walked out dressed for the night; trim black jeans breaking over matte buckle boots, a deep cerulean cowl neck top of a rather odd tailoring, a zipper crossing asymmetrical over his chest and the bottom hem uneven, a thoroughly modern cut. On each finger he wore his usual selection of rings, and it warmed something in me to see it. How many times I had read that passage in his book, how he gave up even this delight in his religious fervor. How amazed he had been after his first night in the city with the other boys, to come home with jewels on his hands. It was not the wealth that excited him so, he barely understood money at all. It was sheer delight in wearing something so pretty, something that caught the light and glittered, a beautiful bauble that made him feel lovely. And he deserved to feel lovely, and warm and safe and protected-

And fire took it all away. 

Armand barely glanced at me as he went back to the hall bathroom, diggingeing around in the drawers and cabinets. After a few moments of quiet he stuck his head back out the open door 

"Master? Could you help me with the back?"

He'd cut his hair, a typical thing if he was trying to appear older before going out, and it waved around his ears and temples in the most darling half-curls, but the back still hung uneven, giving me a horrible impression of the 1980s.

Wordless, I followed him as he dissapeared back into the bathroom, a towel laid out on the counter to catch the long, russet curls he'd already cut. Though it would grow back by the following night, it was always a shame. He had such beautiful hair, full and thick, the kind I always wanted to sink my hands into, but the length and soft coils only made him look younger. My Armand was a chameleon; with his hair right and his clothes right or even a bit of makeup, he could look as young as the night I bought him from that wretched brothel...and in times past, I knew, he could pass for 20, 21...but times were changing, humans were changing. His years of hunger kept his height and frame far smaller than what I had seen of his father, and he was sired small even for a boy of his age in 1499. He couldn't be expected to keep up with 17 and 18 year olds today, not when they were tall and broad as I was with nearly as much hair to their legs and chests and arms, when they had to shave their faces for prom. Armand could be taken as his physical age, of course, he wasn't so babified as to look naturally 12 by any means. Most who saw him read him as late secondary school, as he would have been, just baby faced and a 'late bloomer', but it took the effort of dressing older and cutting his hair to not get people looking too close at his ID to get into an R rated movie.

Picking up the steel shears, I pulled his remaining hair back over his shoulders, holding each curl in my fingers before cutting, careful to not pull it taught. I had been cutting my own hair on and off for centuries, of course, when the fashion dictated, flipping by long mane, naturally falling between my shoulder blades, up in the most nondescript style. Honestly it was ridiculous; for men who so rejected grooming and beauty, they chose the shortest, most high maintence styles that needed upkeep every couple weeks, when long hair was so easy to maintain. But my hair was mostly straight, only waving slightly near the ends, where as Armand's loose, fat curls needed a different tactic. Honestly watching him cut it before I thought it looked almost like trimming a hedge, chopping each loc individually to shape it to his liking. Seeing him do it once, I'd picked the skill up easily, and once done, he looked perfectly respectable. Tipping his head over the towel, he shook out his hair with both hands, dislodging any loose bits and tossling it. "Bedroom hair," magazines called it, and I let myself have a small grin at the implication.

"Ready?" Armand asked, taking just enough time to make sure no remnants of his trim was left clinging to his clothes. And I couldn't help but admire his form as he walked past, to grab his jacket from the hall tree. His jeans fit him nicely, hugging the generous curve of his ass and thighs, the cut making his legs look longer than they were.

And of course he caught me staring, I was hardly hiding it, and he just rolled his eyes at me, chucking my wallet towards my chest.

"Perv."

)))Armand(((

I didn't like the cold. Once upon a time it hadn't bothered me. I'd been raised in the north, where the ground remained frozen half the year and snow could fall from September to May if it wanted. Memories were vague, that far back, but I can recall sharply the chill of waking at dawn, the fire at mother's stove barely doing anything to ease the ache in my bones mid Winter, yet it was just how it was in Russia back then.

That was 9 or 10 lifetimes ago, though, and cemetery crypts had killed my affiliation with the cold. Of course, it didn't hurt me, it couldn't make me sick, and hypothermia was no danger to me, but I didn't like the cold. So I kept my coat buttoned and my hands in my pockets as we walked. What else was I supposed to do with them, hold Master's hand? 

….even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Not in an open, crowded gallery like this. Sure it was France and not the costal US, but I wasn't in the business of upsetting mortals who didn't do anything to wrong me first, and few things upset mortals quite like someone who looked like me hand in hand with someone who looked like Master. And for good reason, I knew, they were right to warn their children against older men who wanted their attention, as such in these days was not given for love but for control, but how could they understand that the world was different in my era? That I come from a time far before even their eldest relatives great grandparents? I certainly couldn't impart to them that I was 539 years old, so for proprieties sake it was best for us to walk side by side, father and son to most eyes. Adopted son maybe, but still.

So I kept my hands in my pockets and strode quickly to keep up with Master's steps. Not so hard, as he heeded the crowd. The street was closed down for the night, an autumn fair set up each night for the weekend. The air sizzled with the sound and aroma of fried things, funnel cakes and little cinnamon dumplings and other morsels I wished to taste. Well. In all honestly I could taste them, I just couldn't swallow them, and what a waste of a perfectly good treat! And nothing tasted as good as it smelled anymore, nothing was as fulfilling as blood. Didn't mean I didn't miss it though. Chocolate still held an echo of how delicious it had been to me as a mortal, especially fed to me from Master's fingers, but it was a dangerous treat to try and savor now. It melted too quick and I couldn't spit it all out and I ended up violently sick for it.

Daniel said I should learn my lesson. Daniel should shut up and mind his own business.

It was a nice little set up honestly, with lights strung up over the street, a creamy, cheery yellow glow warming the sidewalks. Vendors sold other things along with food, like hand made jewelery, blown glass ornaments, leather and patchwork bags. There were even a few amateur artists set up with little square canvases showing acrylic flowers or novice attempts at oils.

It was lovely, and I was so glad Louis suggested it.

"I'd like to get something pretty for the house," I said thoughtfully, slipping into Italian as they often did when we were alone together. Master nodded and hummed.

"It could use some homey touches," he conceeded, "perhaps a small painting for the living room?"

"You'll share wall space with a mortal?" I asked, laying on the scorn and sarcasm thick. Salty, I think, was the word now. At least that's what Daniel called me the last time I went on a tirade about Lestat's latest theatre performance and how he'd cried over all the roses bestowed to him. Salty, indeed!

But Master smiled as we observed a display of hand-tossed ceramics. "I've always admired mortal art, Armand. I taught you boys to imitate human painters as often as my own works did I not?"

"There's a far cry between Caravaggio and Bob Ross and Mrs. Miller down the street," I pointed out.

"Bob Ross made lovely, vivid work and put a love of art into the souls of people who never thought themselves artists." Oh living Lord I was not ready for a lecture. "And mortals put so much love into what they make. Just because their eyes are not as keen as ours or their techniques as flawless as what we can achieve does not make their work ugly."

"I didn't say it did, Master," I grumbled, trying to put as much contempt as I dared into the title. Of course if I really felt daring I would just call him by name but I, one, was not that dareing, 2, did not want to go home yet and 3, didn't feel like being slapped tonight. So Master it was.

Again he chose to ignore my tone, probably a blessing on my part, and I followed him as we wove through the crowds. I was a small thing, chubby but short, and crowds did not part easily for me, but following Master's easy strides did the work for me.

"But to answer, yes, a painting for the wall, or a nice piece of glass. I always loved stained glass or crystals, the way they catch the light. Reminds me of sunrise."

I said nothing. Very often I found I either had nothing to say, or too much, and I was afraid to open my mouth and start meant it would never stop.

We walked the length of the street once, taking a survey of the booths, and only on the way back did we finally stop to look more closely. It was, indeed, a display of glass that caught Master's attention, ran by a couple of older ladies, perhaps not far off from the age at which Master was turned, late forties. Sisters, friends, or lovers, I thought to myself, a game I often played in these modern years. In my day, that is, my mortal days, my early months as a fledgling, such things weren't as hush hush as history books think. There was little secret to those of the Palazzo that I was the master's little lover, nor was it difficult at all to find houses of pleasure like the one I had been sold to, or the one Master sent me to for my 'education'. We couldn't very well go to the bishop and demand the sacrament of matrimony, but Master knew I wasn't in immediate danger of crucification. But up and down go the world's ideas of what is moral, what the church decides this week has been always and forever the word of God. Having lived through the social repression of Victoria's reign, it had been a delight to be with my Daniel at the end of the 20th century, and today to even have the chance to play this game. Tiny pleasures.

Regardless of their relation, they were a talented pair, selling glass candle holders and lamp covers and works of art to hang in windows. Sun catchers, for those who would not suffer burns or the threat of death from such a thing.

Master chatted sweetly to the pair, who seemed excited by his knowledge of their craft. Naturally, though oils were his specialty, he was well versed in many arts; our bookshelves were filled with books on every subject, from woodcarving to coffee table books displaying digital illustrations.

I, naturally, as always, found myself lacking, knowing very little about glass except that it was very pretty. I liked the little one's that looked like a lotus blossom, where you would put a little tea light in and the glow would be diffused through multiple petals of pink or lilac or blue petals. But the interest they sparked was fleeting, and my attention couldn't help but wander about as Marius continued to chat up the women. 

I wandered. Master hadn't told me I wasn't allowed, and I would have cared little if he had, so I let myself drift about the fair, keeping my eye open for someone I could have for dinner. I remembered the jewellery seller across the way and wanted to see their things more closely, and I slipped between other prospective customers with ease.

The owner of the table gave me a polite smile and a nod but little more, and I hadn't expected more. In her eyes I was likely just a bored teenage boy waiting for his mom to finish shopping. If she gave me any time it would probably be to make sure I didn't shoplift some trinket for my homeroom girlfriend. But I must have looked trustworthy enough because she let me browse in peace.

It was not high fashion, of course, nor was anything of particular value, but my own jewellery boxes at home were not filled only with platinum and gold and real stones. I quite liked glass pieces as well, and stainless steel. I owned a mourning ring with an inset of braided hair, and even a couple trinket mood rings leftover from nights wandering the cities with Daniel and haunting junk shops and arcades. And here with displayed a few pieces with sea glass and tiny polished river rocks, wire wrapped raw quartz, resin rings with tiny chips of amethyst. 

I outgrew many an obsession over the years but I doubted I would ever be in a place to not be enchanted by rings, and I was quite glad to have small hands, for a boy, because in these times men's rings were such a bore.

It was not, however, a ring that finally drew me to reach for my wallet, but another shining trinket, paid for with cash, and handed over in a little box in a paper sack.

"Find something you fancy?"

Master stood behind me , surprisingly empty handed himself.

"A few things, yes, they have some unique pieces of jewellery."

He looked at the little paper bag in my hand, hand stamped with their homemade logo in violet ink.

"A ring?" He guessed easily, but I shook my head.

"No."

"What did you buy then?"

And oh, I knew it was most likely innocent curiosity, an attempt at lighthearted conversation perhaps, but I just opened the black satchel i wore across my person and slipped the small bag inside.

"It's nothing."

"Well it's obviously something."

"It's nothing for you."

Marius huffed slightly, and I was reminded immediately of a territorial tomcat, raising the fur on his back at the first signs of a threat. If an insolent fledgling could be called a threat.

"I wasn't asking because I expected a gift, Armand, only to ask for its own sake."

Armand. Master called me that plenty, but as he said it now it jolted me, set my teeth on edge, and I realized quickly I hadn't been expecting it, not when this conversation would play out so differently before-

//

"Oh, and what did you find at the market to grab your fancy, my Amadeo?"

And I produced a little book, not much larger than my whole hand, with ink illustrations on nearly every page, beautiful scrolls and tiny people and wolves and deer and other creatures.

"How lovely," Master had praised my taste, looking through the little tome. "Poetry is always an excellent choice for reading material."

"But, Maestro, I cannot read it," I said hesitantly, embarassed to admit that I had bought it, childishly, only because I liked the pictures in it. But Master only smiled, telling me I would learn to read Italian quick enough, and took me into his lap.

"Find for me your favorite picture," he said sweetly, handing me back the book I bought with my allowance from his purse. "And I'll read it to you. Then I'll read it again, and you can follow the letters along with me."

//

How much more noble could Amadeo handle such a situation than Armand could, loving and trusting where I was cold and auspicious and didn't know when to shut up.

"Are you going to start monitoring my checkbook, Master?" I sneered, squaring my shoulders and raising my chin as though such an act would do anything to my height.

"How could I expect to trace what leaves your wallet when I have a hard enough time with what comes out of your mouth."

My turn to bristle, two feral cats in an alleyway.

"And what about you? Can I stick my nose in your business? Nothing good enough for the great artiste?"

"No," he said cooly, injecting a tense patience into his voice, and ah, at least Amadeo also had his share of that tone directed at him when he decided sunshine naps were more important than writing lessons. "I figured if we're getting something for the house we should get something together, lest one of us have to suffer the others one's choice of decor against their will. I came looking for you for your opinion."

Ah. Well. That cut my attitude as deep as my pride, and even looking away from him I knew he could hear the bear of my heart, maybe even smell the shame in my blood, and shame only made me more angry, more bitter, and put a sting to my eye. I wanted to run, to escape what upset me so, but that involved more energy than I was willing to spend right then. Or even could spend. Fuck.

"...right. ok. Well everything they had was nice," I shrugged, and I let Master lead, to see if tonight he was stubborn and wanted to complete what he started or if his own patience was running out. He lead me easily back to the glass booth. Stubborn Master then, teaching me a lesson in patience? Who knows. "...The lotuses are pretty," I finished lamely, sighing and shoving my hands into my pockets. 

Perhaps I was more the petulant teenager at times than I wanted to admit.


	4. Chapter 4

)))Armand(((

The house was so quiet when Master wasn't home. Out early, before I even woke, he was at an art supply shop, trying to gather up new tubes of titanium white and some palette knives before it closed. Always, of course, Master woke before me, and though he was quiet in the evening, I could always hear him. His heartbeat, the rap of his fingers on his tablet, the sound of the sheers as he trimmed his hair should the fancy strike him. But tonight when I woke I was alone.

I was so rarely alone. From Russia to the brothels I was never alone. At the Palazzo all those centuries ago I had a dozen brothers to be my constant friend's, playing games and helping mind the littlest one's, trading sweet kisses with the older. Days full of wine and song waiting for Master...and then Rome, of course, alone only in my cell. Paris, the leader of so many. The theatre and my Night Island and Trinity Gate where my Benji and Sybelle still often lived. 

And court, where I was one among hundreds, sometimes thousands. But so rarely alone.

Still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I wriggled my feet as I sat up, trying to get the circulation started again, my own heart picking up after the death like sleep of the day. To the bathroom- mine, the one in the hall, with Marius having the attached master bath- I splashed my face and ran my hand through my hair to ruffle up the curls where they flattened in the back. Each drop of water in the sink, the sound of my own habitual breath; too quiet. I hated it immediately, and grabbed my phone off it's charger to start music. 80s pop, I decided, obnoxious and painfully synthetic, reminding me of the candy pixie powder I tried once and spat out quicker than I did most foods, much to Daniel's uproarious delight. This music reminded me of him, though he didn't like it any more than I did. But it was always on the radio, during our happiest times. It played through the shops and restaurants at my island, through the speakers of his car when we drove to nowhere special from nowhere else..

You couldn't find Renaissance flutes and lyres quite so easily. Oh it could be done, but it was a fascimile, and didn't sound anything like the instruments in my own hand...how long since I had held a lute? I wondered how easy it would be to find one, and how different it was from playing a guitar or mandalin.

I dressed, and decided to not bother with cutting my hair; if I left the house at all it would be for the castle. With a keen ear I listened for signs that Master was near. Though I was closed to his mind and thoughts, I could still hear his footsteps and heartbeat as easily as any other physical movement and sound. Finding none, and sure he was enthralled with his paints and canvases for the time, I slipped back into my room to dig for my own little store.

I kept the sketchbook hidden beneath my mattress like a damn dirty magazine and I couldn't really explain why, even to myself. It was too personal an item to be left around, too intimate, though the drawings inside were tame as baby chicks. Some landscapes from the castle windows, a portrait of Louis leaning atop a stack of books in the library, my sweet Daniel asleep on a chaise lounge, recovering from a drunkard meal. This was the fourth I'd filled up in as many months, some rendered in the privacy of my room, some around only my closest and most trusted partners.

Marius didn't know. Charcoal on paper was too heavy a burden on its own, each mark a struggle, trying to use the black marks to scribble over tempera paint, covering Christ with my new Gods and tarnishing every halo with images of love those cave brothers said would send a man to perdition. That alone was a struggle few could understand, how every page filled could almost be a heresy in itself. I didn't need Master's opinions on it added to the weight. 

It wasn't as though I feared Master's criticism; though his eye for art was impeccable, his tongue was soft as sable brushes and always had been in the studio. It was with gentle words and kind instruction that he taught his boys to paint, correcting my brothers patiently and letting their mistakes be their second teacher. Every new boy brought into the Palazzo was given the same education, whether they came from the streets or their fathers gambling dens or, in my case, the brothels of Venice's slave trade, all of them had brushes pressed to their hands. And what beautiful images came from them, from even the youngest and most inexperienced of my brothers, under the maestros guiding hands.

None, though, came from mine. The trauma ran too deep.

No, no, it was just the look in Master's eyes I wanted to avoid, to be caught with a pencil in my hand. How he coaxed me to paint in Venice, stopping for a time after I became ill in the church at the sight of Christ. It tormented me to paint, it reminded me only of damnation and the sins I committed each night in my Master's bed. But eventually, after I was given the blood, after the world shone around me more than any empty promise of heaven, I did paint, with the skill of a newborn vampire, though not nearly to what Master could do. But that would come in time. Side by side in his studios he taught me, and I would someday create on canvas the same masterpieces as my dearest teacher.

And then came the fire and the hell promised to me from Kiev and it was 480 years before I put a pencil to paper again. It was my secret, it was my silent devotion to gods I wasn't sure were listening. I had filled up inumerable sketchbooks since meeting my Daniel, my beloved child, many lost now, many filled with scratched out and ripped pages and burned as I, like Marius, wondered why it was I could not see better than mortals could see. Some I kept tucked away at the castle or my Paris home, but a few I kept here. Including this one. And one other.

Always that one. I kept that one carefully and nicely, and though the corners were showing the wear of handling and moving, inside it was barely touched, only a few pages used. I decided, before even starting, that unwanted that particular sketchbook this night and retrieved it from the deep inside of my closet. I flipped past these without looking at them, and sat on my bed with a fresh, creamy sheet on my lap, and beside me a little box filled with charcoal and a sanding block to work the sticks with.

There was a magic in a blank page. It was open and waiting to be filled with line and color, to carry the overflow of the artists hand. Whatever couldn't fit within heart and mind anymore went to paper for so many, as words for Lestat, as notes of twinkling music for Antoine, as pictures for me, sometimes, when I was brave enough. It wasn't even as though my subjects were somehow taboo; I didn't consider the naked body to be of any shame no matter what aspects of the modern world would say about the body, about mine even, with 'too much,' fat around my belly and arms and thighs, my hair grown free where it had been able at my age and my part uncut. Natural and given easily to pleasure, I could love my physical self in a way hard to feel for my emotional self and that was what was so hard to put to paper. Venician arches or canals, the spires of a church, perhaps on fire, the face of my fledgling as a mortal, thin and gaunt from alcohol and sickness and the price of my love...the face of Riccardo, my brother, whose lips I peppered with kisses by candle light-

So many things to flow from my soul to my hand to the paper, for only my eyes to see and not another. Not Master. Not /this/ book especially.

I sat for the better part of an hour at work, lost in music and the soft scratch of charcoal, and I heard Master well before he made it to the door, and hid my book easily, taking out the novel I'd been working through and plopping myself on my belly to pretend to read.

"Armand?" His voice called, followed by the close and latch of the door behind him. Keys, shoes off, and I heard his soft footsteps down the hall as he stopped at my door. /My/ door, as though he were my father slipping in for an afternoon chat. Well. The unusual layers of our relationship notwithstanding, I disliked the distance, and nodded my approval for him to come in and made room for him on my bed.

"Did you find what you needed?" I asked lightly, marking my place in my book and hoping he wouldn't be perceptive enough to notice it hadn't changed.

With an almost sheepish grin he held up the stamped paper back, heavy with the spoils of creative war.

"And more than that," he admitted, smiling in that gentle, easy way that had always bewitched me. As modest as Master ever was. "These stores are just a marvel, really, paints in colors I could never have mixed in Venice!"

"But have they yet found a true replacement for mummy brown?" I wanted to know, my own grin pulling the corners of my mouth just enough to bring out the tips of my fangs. With a devilish glee I watched Master pull a sour face at this ongoing taunt. He swore to the ends of the earth and back again that despite the questionable morality of the pigment it was just not possible to emulate it without the ground bodies of the dead. It was adorable to watch him squirm.

"Show me what you've brought home, Master, to recreate paradise on your canvases."

What a simple joy it was to peer at all these colors with him, little tubes of oils and greasy pastel crayons he'd recently been taken with, the new canisters of turpentine that smelled as strong as ever, the new lengths of graphite and charcoal with which to mark out each blossoming idea. He loved the small hobby shops, the cozy stores, and was their frequent patron especially for framing, but even the great Marius could be enthralled by a large market, and the sheer selection available to an artist in these plentiful times.

"Come with me sometime," he suggested as I tested the flow of a brush tip pen against my wrist, writing a large curly-q L and adoring the way it miniced calligraphy. "It's quite a fun way to spend an hour. I took forward to winter when I'll have more time to browse."

"I don't paint, Master," I said simply, continuing to drag the black ink across the pale skin of my inner arm. "Haven't in centuries." Not technically a lie. Drawing was not painting.

"I know, Armand." Was there a slip of mourning in his voice, regret? Or was I projecting once more? "But you have such an eye for color."

"We are vampires; only some species of shrimp see color better than we." And my witiness was rewarded with a small if somewhat derisive laugh.

"Well my little shellfish, accompany me sometime, it would be fun to browse all the paints and palettes with you. And stop drawing on yourself."

With this he reached forward and gently took the brush pen from my fingers, for which I tossed him an icy look.

"I was making art with that," I argued, the spirals on my wrist surely as relevent as Rembrandt.

"You were making a mess with it," Master corrected in his dry and simple tone. "If you wish to make of yourself a canvas I have better mediums for it."

I grew still, save for my eyes, snapping up quickly to meet his. What his original intent in such words were I couldn't say, whether he had an actual desire for artistic merit or whether he wanted me to flush all along. He held my gaze though, with no hint of shame on his face.

He reached for me first, but slowly, giving me ample time to shake my head or pull away before his hand settled gently over my cheek. Stroking his thumb beneath my eye, he turned me upwards, tipping my face towards him. Handsome, painfully so, always the very ideal of a man to me, from his narrow nose and striking eyes to the marks of age that mimicked crows feet and laugh lines, often smoothed by the blood but obvious within the eyes of a lover. 

I let myself be kissed. I wanted it, welcomed it, something I once had hour after hour and which now seemed to be rationed. Master's kisses, my messed up bastard of a brain told me, were dangerous. Too many and he would think himself absolved. Not enough, and what we had tensed together these years would wither and die even as we ourselves could never wither and die. So it was often with caution that I gave myself to this simple passion, to his cold lips on mine, his hand holding me just still and firm enough to know that in some things, always, he would lead me, tend me, love me-!

I felt his hand on my chest, broad enough to cover most of it, and I let myself be just unyielding enough to feel his strength, the smallest slice of it, press me down onto my bed, his own form following immediately to arch above me. Yes, god yes, this was all I wanted. Master's strong arms on either side of my head as we kissed, his hair loose around my face and hiding me, hiding us. I let him easily between my legs, letting myself not think for a while on rationing my affections. I wanted kissed, all the time I was near him I wanted his lips on mine with even less abandon than Venice. I bit softly at his bottom lip, and he bit back with more force, as he liked, as I loved, and I gave to him soft sighs and groans, so readily spilled I wasn't sure where my heart had been keeping them. How long since we'd let ourselves-? Over a week, maybe two. Physical pleasure in each other's embrace was not foreign to us since Venice, indeed, we'd shared a bed often at my Island, at the castle, sometimes quick and furitive and full of desperation for each other's body if we could not have each other's open hearts, other times a bloody affair with my face bruised and thighs sore after I mouthed off for attention because I have never learned better.

I heard his sounds too, always more guarded than mine, but still there, a long, low groan as his tongue slipped past my teeth, as he nipped at mine gently, too gently, when I wanted him to make me bleed-!

The sudden knocking on our front door had me incensed to a degree where I had half a mind to take the fire gift to whoever dared interupt me, whoever broke Master's devotions away from me, but it was Lestat's voice that I heard calling to us.

"...ignore him," I demanded, dragging Master back down to me by the collar of his shirt and he obeyed me readily. For 6 seconds before Lestat pounded again, more impatient this time.

"That damndest thing," Master snarled, a touch of gross impatience cracking through his calm demeanor and I beamed at being luscious enough a treat for him to act so heartily dissapointed of being deprived me. Finally giving up, Master stood, straightened his clothes and headed for the door, myself on his heels.

"Marius!" Lestat greeted us with his too wide smile and too-cheery voice. Well. He greeted my master this way; to me it was a cheeky grin and a reached to pet my curls which I heartily denied. My heart didn't have room to process my devotion to my prince right now, too busy trying to arrange my face into the perfect look that said, with as much eloquence as I could, that this bastard cockblocked me and I wasn't thrilled. 

Lestat either didn't notice or chose to ignore; neither would surprise me, and he turned to my master with the same broad smile.

"We're going out for a hunt, Louis and I, and I thought maybe you would join?"

At mention of Louis Master and I both noted he was not at the door and I, being the smaller of us, slipped around Lestat to peer outside. Ah, there was my sweet Louis, admiring the roses climbing a trellis at the front of the house, covering the living room window to afford us a bit of nocturnal privacy. My sweet Louis, my beloved Louis, gentle and distracted and looking tired. Definately needed the hunt, I could tell, but to go out as a group? Tonight?

Unsure, I looked back towards Master, to at least gauge his thoughts on the matter, and found him already staring intently at me, eyes hard and appraising, a look not completely foreign to me. I stood quiet under his gaze, unsure of what he was looking for and unsure if I liked being given such a once over in public. Before I could voice my displeasure though, he turned back to Lestat.

"A hunt would do us all well," he said decisively, and he flicked his eyes back to me for just a moment.

Oh, how much turmoil these moments put me in and always had, the little delights of being tended to and looked after, directly clashing with the fierce beast in me to always want my own way. It was a song and dance I shared only with Marius, one we once followed beautifully to the loveliest music, but somehow over the years we had both forgotten the steps.

...fine. if Master wanted a meal, who was I to deny him blood?

)))Marius(((

I wanted Armand to have blood. It had been too long, I thought, since he'd last taken a human life, a week or thereabouts, and though he showed little of the gauntness or lethargy of blood hunger, he was dreadfully cold under my touch, his lips as icy as my own as I tasted him. How I wanted to cut at my own throat as he lay under me, feed him from my own body as I had when he was a mortal boy and as a fledgling in the truest sense of the word and not just as my child. How strong he was then, how immediately lively and powerful and gifted in mind and body. And how I feared he had stagnated since. Oh, indeed, my boy was a vision of his age but he could be more, he should be more. Already Daniel could run as quick as he or lift the same weight as he. Already Viktor, a brother to him by blood, could keep up with him if it came to a fight. It was only with his mental gifts that he continued to outdo even vampires older than myself.

To be clear I found nothing in my Armand lacking in this way, but I feared for him, a fear that had set in during those nights that Rhoshamandes set siege to our castle and hasn't lifted since. A fear that I had not prepared my boy to survive, that his notoriety outshone his gifts and he was vulnerable for it. That my own notoriety would leave him vulnerable.

So a hunt it would be, the prince and his beautiful consort, and I with my...fledgling? Lover? Child?

...my Armand, then. 

We grabbed our jackets and made our way into the city, slinking easily up and down just the right streets, busy enough to fit in, out of the way enough to find the less noteworthy of society. 

Truly, I didn't need the blood. It had been maybe 3 weeks since I fed, and while the sound of it was delightful I had no real need or craving of it. I could go two months or more before I became truly hungry and weakened for it. Still, if I found a victim to draw my fancy, then perhaps I would hunt. We were predators still after all, and I couldn't deny the thrill of the hunt.

I stayed at Lestat's side, the young man prattling on excitedly about the new piece he wanted to rehearse for his theatre, not Shakespeare this time but a more modern production, Rent perhaps, which I had seen some time ago with Daniel and which I had enjoyed quite well, though it didn't sit quite right with my young companion. Which was how I learned that about his human death, at least.

I told Lestat a musical production sounded like an excellent idea, a wonderful use of all the talent we had within the coven, and of course, Lestat would wish to star in whatever production he chose. Oh, my brat prince, his confidence often strayed that side of cocky, but I couldn't help but admire that spark in his chest.

Ahead of us walked Louis and Armand, shoulder to shoulder and talking soft and quick in French. Louis was making his way through the Illiad, which Armand had read and memorized great portions of in Greek, Latin and in English. All the while though, I could see their eyes tracking, peering into the faces of those who passed. Louis more than any of us needed to feed, and was more that capable of finding his own meal, and eventually did quietly break off from the group after a middle aged man with a business suit and a penchant for beating the hell out of his girlfriend and 2 children.

He wouldn't be bothering them again.

Armand too was like smoke as he approached a group of twenty something's, putting on his sweetest smile and pulling his long curls around his fingers. He could entice anyone to their death, using those innocent eyes and his heartbreakingly lonely smile. Lestat, he was a classicist if anything, and he would find a murderer or a rapist in due time.

And myself? I didn't intend to feed. I didn't need it nor did I need to add to the body count of Paris that night.

But sometimes a scent catches a vampire and whets the appetite in a way difficult to ignore, and this was such a night. Strong blood, rich blood, healthy and enticing. A man about my physical age, someone with a body trail left along roads and backwoods lanes.

Oh, perfect, my favorite meal.

He was easy to follow, they all were. A human was never a challenge for me to stalk, not anymore, not for a thousand years. I followed him at ten feet, then 8, and five. A hand on his shoulder and he walked with me through an ally, down behind the trashcans. How uncivilized but it was the only real option. In the dark, the street sounds muffled, I took his throat to my mouth and bit. How sweet, how forever sweet was the millionth bite, just as much as the first, but so different were my desires now. I could no longer only bite and drain the blood, no, I all but gnawed at this body, piercing bite after bite from jaw to collar bone, yet wasting not a drop.

They said we can not feed on the blood of a dead man but that's not quite true. While it may kill Daniel and make Louis quite ill, a fresh corpse was catch of the day for one as old as I. How else was I to take the blood from the heart?

My own blood pounded as I brought the body to the concrete ground, and pulled apart the ribs with no more trouble than gathering twigs for kindling. And behind them, split open, the heart gave it's last pitiful shudder as I yanked it free from it's arteries and connective tissue. Yea Gods nothing tasted this perfect, sinking my fangs deep into the hot muscle, clenching the heart into my white, hard fingers. Each mouthful was bliss, each swallow warmed me from the inside, and I took bite after bite of the heart, sucking each drop of my meal from it before spitting the tissue back out, back into the body cavity for easy clean up.

I was on my last bites when I realized I had an audience. I felt Armand's eyes on me, so had no fear that I had been caught by a mortal, but I was pained all the same. I licked the last drips from my fingers, noteing the warmth of my flesh, and waited for my lover to speak first.

"How's it taste, Master?"

How it words stroked my skin, vt already already aflame from the kill and the meal, how beautiful he was standing there framed by the street lights. Auburn hair shining orange, denim cut loose and comfortable over his lush little body. His cheeks were brilliant pink from his own victim, and that added to my own pleasure. 

But I restrained myself. I closed my eyes and kept the beast in my contained.

"As rich as any other, Armand," I replied steadily, but I knew this was not a good enough answer. He stared me down hard, my being and this blood being the whole focus of his world, as I often was. I wanted to lavish in it. There was hunger in his eyes, but not physical, I knew. Not to feed.

"Go find Louis," I said quietly, getting to my feet and gathering up the body. "I'll be dumping this in the ocean; have you cleaned up your own mess?"

"Of course, Master," he said quietly, and without blinking he stepped closer, intoxicated and wanting.

But I couldn't allow that. I couldn't let Armand be a part of this, what I hid in shame, what I protected from Daniel, but I admitted to no one, especially my young one.

"Good boy," I praised, knowing how those simple words thrilled him, even if he hated it. Adjusting my hold on the body, I packed up slightly, out of reach of the lights. "Now go find Louis and Lestat, head home with them. I will catch up."

And I was airborne, losing his call to the wind.


	5. Chapter 5

I did as Master said. Of course I did. Ever dutiful, ever obedient, even when I would surely rather not be. And sometimes I wasn't. Even in Venice I had a hot temper and a will of my own, often excercised to the chagrin of my master. And here in France, I yelled in the council chamber, I fought openly with Marius and opposed his codes of conduct just to be contrary, just to get him angry, just to get his attention.

But now, just as back then, there was pleasure is submission and giving Master what he wanted. When I pleased him and he smiled at me, stroked my hair, told me how he adored me, there was no greater thrill. I hated myself for it, but sometimes I couldn't bring myself to fight. So I did as I was told. I allowed Lestat and Louis to walk me home, both warm and vibrant from blood and neither aware that anything was amiss. I kissed Louis good night, I unlocked the door and let myself in. The house was as quiet as it had been when I woke, empty and alone, and I didn't like it any more now than I did then, and hooked my phone to the Bluetooth. Modern piano sounded fine to me, anything to cut through the vast silence. Climbing onto the plush leather couch, I curled my feed under me and rifled through the books in the coffee table. Daniel had become a ferocious reader of vintage science fiction; it reminded him of the stories he would watch with his mortal father growing up, and my Danny was nearing what would have been the end of his mortal lifetime. So I picked them up too, reading them in time. I wanted to have him over soon; I liked reading to him, and he allowed it. 

But just then I couldn't keep my mind on my fledgling or these stories, so I just ended up rearranging them over and over on the table, by title, by author, by size. Were patterns like this where those stories came from, that we vampires were obsessive and had to count grains of rice or pebbles? Well, we were an obessive lot, this was true, and were often overcome with fascination for the mundane. Ask any newborn how many hours they've spent staring at candle flames! 

I heard the door unlock, and sat back on the touch, legs tucked under me, wanting to appear quiet and demure and obediant and all the other things I often was not. I could see the foyer from here and watched as Master hung up his coat and tossed his keys into the glass dish.

"Welcome home," I said gently, keeping my voice reserved. How differently I used to greet him! When I was a mortal boy, the entire Palazzo would thunder with the feet of a dozen boys, all rushing towards Master when he returned to us each evening, vying to his smiles and sweet touches. Sometimes he would bring gifts from his pockets, a foreign coin for Alfredo, a hairpin for Albinus who could rarely be convinced to wear a cap. He would greet us all, survey our work from the day, listen to our lessons and offer what correction was needed. Sometimes he dined with us and we all pretended not to notice his untouched food and wine, sometimes he told us of a new painter or display we must see with our tutors. And always, there was the time given to just me. Even if he had work to do, even if we couldn't lie in each other's arms making love for the rest of the night, he would always take me aside. To our room if we could, or just behind an arch or into a studio. Long enough to tip my face up and kiss me as he kissed only me, and not the chaste, fatherly kisses he gave to the other boys. I alone shared his bed, I alone was the Master's kept boy, his Psyche, his lover, and I could think of little else as the sky darkened each day than being in his arms and receiving those tell-no-one kisses. 

Why couldn't I be that innocent and loving child again, for just one night?

"Thank you, Armand," said Master. He slipped off his shoes and sat them carefully in the rack by the door. He looked weary, his face showing its age lines in a wonderfully handsome way after a fresh kill (how I loved kissing those little wrinkles at his eyes as a mortal) but it also showed to great extent every little anxiety that plagued him.

I knew we wouldn't talk about his hunt. I knew about his new way of taking a life, how he craved the heart, how he wanted marrow from the bones. I had read the books same as any other blood drinker. But I had never /seen it/. Not till tonight, at least, and I wanted more of it immediately. I rarely, if ever, was allowed to see the The Great Marius, /my/ great Marius, in such an absolutely feral state, given to the passions of our flesh in such a real way. And as if I had never eaten a heart in my immortal lifetime! It was practically a right of passage!

I was set up to have a fit. I was all ready to be cross with him for keeping secrets, but he looked at me with such tenderness and with exhaustion in his eyes and said to me,

"My Amadeo, let us have a bath,"

And what was I meant to do?

)))(((

Marius' room had the large ajoining bath, a luxurious thing when taken in the modern, minimalist tone of the house. I knew Marius preferred a more ornate look but I was currently taken with the almost industrial sparsity of the black marble and full glass wall of windows overlooking the yard, and this aesthetic extended to the bathroom. Nearly as large as the bedroom itself, the bath had a large, silver framed mirror above the long counter, two sinks affixed to it, for the assumption that I would eventually share bed with my maker again, the sort that sat like basins atop the counter rather than be sunk into it. A small table sat over an unused toilet, holding similairly unused candles. But the nicest part of the room was the tub, and it may or may not have been my deciding factor in choosing this particular house as my own; I have, and have had since I was 15, rather a fondness for a large, comfortable bath tub. A corner set up with a wide bench all around it, the black marble tub could fit two grown men; so of course it was more than enough for one grown man and me.

I sat myself on the edge, pressed down the stopper and began the water, hot as it would go. One could put us into a boil before we would find it unpleasant enough to get out, so I encouraged the water heater to do it's worst.

"Rose?" I asked, already reaching for the creamy liquid in a glass bottle by the edge, a concoction of coconut milk and rose oils and other delightful perfumes. I knew all of Master's favorite things, and he was not often given to change. I looked up towards him all the same, just in case. He stood at the counter, leaning against it casually as he undid the buttons of his shirt. And of course I stared, as though there were any such secrets between myself and my Master after all these years, when we had laid bare together the very night he purchased me? Indeed I'd had not a scrap of clothes on me the very moment he first saw me. So I drank him in greedily, the way his hair rippled as he eased his shirt down his shoulders and tossed it over the back of a chair. He was not toned the way men in movies are now, all lines and ridges, and indeed Master was a slight man, but he was strong, and I could see the muscles of his arms ripple under vampire white skin with every movement, and the planes of his chest just broad enough to make no mistake that he'd been a man in excellent shape for his age when he'd died.

I watched unashamed as he undid the button on his trousers; the hair across his chest and down his belly was slightly darker than his gold waves, sandy colored, tawny, and I watched with appreciation as he stripped down completely, revealing the harsh line of his hips, long, toned legs, and a still enticing length between. Just because sex meant something different to us now than it did when I was a living boy didn't mean I didn't still have a young man's predilections. 

"Do you plan to bathe fully dressed?" Master asked me, managing to dig up a small smile despite the exhaustion on his face.

It was only then I realized I hadn't so much as removed one sock, so busy was I enjoying my Master undressing. Who could blame me? Marius was a fine cut of a man, lean, strong, just muscular enough to look like he could keep someone safe, even without his vampiric blood, and I felt an arrogant burst of pride in my stomach, knowing I was his. Even if not I alone throughout the millenia, it was only me now, me who he claimed his immortal years were given to him for.

But this elation was always fleeting. Paris always quick to pop into my head. His greatest blunder, that's what he called me, the child given as sacrifice to the dark blood.

But couldn't I pretend, if I tried, for just a little while? That I was still his lover, devoted heart, body and soul? That years and miles were nothing to us?

I stood, toeing off black socks first, then unclasping the belt of my jeans. Oh, these little things I remembered about Master, such as how he liked the look of me half undressed in this way, without any trousers or underthings, covered just barely by a tunic or linen shirt or sweater. Something about the sweetness and the flirtation appealed to him and I was ready to indulge my Master. So off went by jeans, and he drank in my bare legs, rounded thighs and muscular calves, my pullover just long enough to cover my ass as I undid the snaps at my throat. He dissapeared from my sight as I pulled the shirt over my head, and I did so languidly. Thigh to hip to belly, I had a softness about me, a strength. Muscle from an active childhood and weight from an adolescence fed on veal and wine and fresh bread and butter left me for immortality with a form I could almost call /succulent/ if I felt so wickedly inclined, and I lavished in how Master lusted after me. 524 years with Marius and I still cast my spell. 

I turned, letting my hair fall loose and thick over the tops of my shoulders as I did so, and stood on toe to slide myself over the edge of this ample tub.

"Join me, Master?" I asked with coy innocence, a scoundrel's smile on my lips as Master approached me with hungry eyes. 

"You are an absolutely vipe thing, Armand, and you will drive me to madness."

I laughed softly, and accepted this compliment as Marius slid down to join me in the hot water. Perhaps on another night I would dim the lights in favor of candles, but I couldn't stomach such saccharine romance tonight, no, I just wanted to be close to my maker.

He leaned back with a deep sigh, sinking down enough for the water to lap around his mid chest, and I was quick to be with him, sliding over his legs to straddle his lap and press myself to him. I was impatient, as much now as I had been alive, and always so starved for touch.

"Am I that desireable to you, Armand, or are you this avaricious?" My master asked me, and though his smile was playful I sensed in his voice an honest yearning for the answer, and I was fairly sure I knew why.

"You have always been this desireable to me, sweet Master," I whispered, my soft voice the only sound in the room. I had, as Lestat said, lost my accent, and tended to speak my French or English with the local dialect just fine. Somehow, though, it seemed impossible to shake the Russian roundness from my Italian, even when for a time I couldn't remember a word of my mother tongue; even my mimicry could not break this. "You send me away to the finest brothels in Venice and I come back wanting only you."

Master's eyes were steady on me, cobalt blue like the skies of hottest Mediterranean summers. I moved closer, the bottom of my chest now pressed to his belly, my back bowed only enough to keep his whole face in view. With wet hands, I tucked his hair behind his ears. 

"Wanting always you. Even if I found pleasure with Riccardo or Albinus or... others...those were simple, passing pleasures. It was your bed I haunted at sunset."

"And you were always my sleeping and waking thoughts, Amadeo," he confessed, and I watched the lines by his eyes deepen as he spoke, looking as though he were digging deep for these images, though I knew his memory was perfectly clear. "It was like your face were painted on the inside of my tomb, always before me on either side of the death sleep. I loved you-"

"Instantly and impossibly." I finished his words, and they hung between us like lead screens. Marius' words, written in his memoir. Blood and gold indeed, to me it was only tears and heartbreak, reading my Master's confessional. What the world saw as erotic fiction I held as gospel, one that read damnation as surely as joy. My Master, my Christ, my Living Lord.

I don't think I had wanted to bring up those words, but I have an awful habit of grinding salt into open wounds, including my own. I sabotage myself quite often; it's quite a talent, really. I shook my head,and tried to cover my regret with a gentle smile, trailing my hands down his neck and speeding my thin fingers across his collar bone. One circled the hollow beneath his throat, and I delighted in how he tipped his chin up for me to touch more. 

"Instantly and impossibly," Marius agreed. His voice was so whisper soft it felt like silk, like our sheets in Venice-

Venice was my paradise on earth but sometimes it pained me that Venice was almost all we had. Three years, out of my 500. 3 years when it had been more than 30 since we were reunited and what did we have to show for it? A scattering of awkward weeks in Miami. Me begging my maker to care for the child I couldn't. A suicide attenpt- not my finest hour- and now here. Now this. 

Leaning foward, I offered my lips to his, a soft kiss, perhaps not chaste but also not demanding or openly starved. And he responded in kind, his warm mouth on mine, quick kisses, cautious ones, till a soft bite to my bottom lip was his way of asking for more. I opened my mouth to him, gasping softly as he lathed his tongue over the top of my own. What was desire to us? It was something completely different than what I had experienced as a mortal, those impulses I had denied myself among my brother monks for fear of Hell and which I had given into with gladness with Master and others. My body craved his more the longer we kissed, but there was no swelling between my legs to show it and no ache to be filled, but we never left behind our passion to be touched. Indeed, perhaps made as I was from such a hungry, lustful young man, I still craved it to a shameful degree. Yes, please, give me blood before all else, take mine, but give me kisses first, touch my chest, tug on my nipples, kiss my belly and ease fingers into me as you bite. 

And Master indulged me, and knew what I wanted without asking. As I opened my mouth to him, to kiss me as deep as he liked and use fangs if he wished, he stroked his broad hands over my back, cupping one down to my ass to keep my flush to him while the other eased between us to stroke my length. Lovely, yes, and I still convinced myself it was loveliest to be touched in such intimate places, moreso than simply arms or shoulders or cheeks. 

Finally he bit, one fang piercing the end of my tongue, and my body gave up a small well of it's blood, rich from feeding, warm from it, and he lapped at it as greedy as any of our kind. God, I loved how he took from me, even these small drops tugging at my heart, and I pushed him away just long enough to pierce my bottom lip with my own fangs, making a bloody mess of our kiss.

Naturally Marius spilled not a drop of me, and he never had. How he deemed himself so dignified and composed, silentl in this treat as I was already whimpering my pleasure. His hand on my back rose then, to cradle my neck and the back of my head, wet fingers tangleing into my curls, and as my wounds began to close he opened them onto his own flesh. Master's blood spilled across my waiting tongue and I savored it long as I could, until my mouth filled it and compelled me to swallow as once other fluids would have done (though Daniel never seemed to mind that I was a spitter on my old vampiric age.) I took him eagerly, each drop, my body alight and pulsing with it, and it seemed that he was opening the wounds over and over as we kissed, sometimes catching my own lips or tongue with his fangs and mingling our blood. What was more, he wouldn't let me pull away (as though I wanted to?) And kept me wed to him as I drank, parting us only when he seemed content to know if had plenty. 

"Such a beautiful flush, Armand, after you feed," he praised me gently, trailing his tongue over my damp, swollen lips; they would look this darling and plush for only moments, And I let him savor me. Hell, I wanted nothing more than for the great Marius de Romanus to savor me, to praise me, to adore every part of me. I had gone long without it, after all, and some days I worried if I would lose it again. 

Pliant in his hands, Master tipped my head back and kissed gently down my throat, soft brushes if warm lips beneath my jaw, down the raised tendon, under my Adams apple, to my collar. With each delicate touch I tensed, eagerly awaiting the bite, and I knew the bastard loves this teasing. He must, because he didn't actually bite; instead he would scratch, he would prick his skin with the tip of one fang, enough for just a drop or two of blood. Finally he bit hard enough to make me gasp, filling his mouth with blood only to offer it back to me in a kiss. How delightfully sinful, this pantamime of human sex, and I parted my lips, hungry for it, swallowing my own blood back. All it did was my thirst, and when Master tugged me down to his own neck by hair, I whimpered, eager for his pulse, for the break of immortal flesh under my small fangs.

)))Marius(((

It pulled straight through me as Amadeo bit and began to feed eagerly on my blood, and it was the deepest pleasure, moreso even than my hunted meal that night. Such darling, eager sounds he made as he drank, his delicate hands clutching at my neck and my hair to keep me right against him. My arms wrapped themselves right around his waist, encouraging this, praising him with what words I could manage as he drew the blood from my heart. 

This, at least, I could offer him. This I could do right now, offer him my ancient blood, strengthen him, feed him, give him this deep pleasure. I wondered, if I gave enough, if I have it whenever he asked, if somehow I could hide my true shortcomings beneath it. Blood to wash away my sins.


End file.
